Gaara's Other Mother
by tachikoma's ghost
Summary: Coraline crossover. After Yashameru's death, Gaara is sent away for a short time while the village decides what to do with him. Temari and Kankuro are sent along to take care of him. But a small door in the strange old house is about to change everything.
1. Chapter 1

[I was hoping to get this up for Halloween, but I didn't make it. Oh well! This is set shortly after Yashameru is sent to assassinate Gaara and is killed. Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro are sent away for a short time while their father and the village decide whether they can really risk letting Gaara grow up.]

The house beyond the edge of town looked unspeakably foreign. It was of a strange design, all gables and porches and mysterious little stairways on the outside. The garish pink paint was cracked and peeling, and the once white railings were gray with neglect. Here and there were cracked windowpanes and shutters with hinges rusted solid.

"Geez, what a dump," said Kankuro, voicing a mutual feeling.

Beside him, Gaara didn't even look up but stared at the back of Temari's seat.

"There's some guy on the roof doing exercises," said Temari, "What kind of loony bin is this?"

"All right," said the shinobi who had driven them there, "Everybody out."

"What are we going to do for food?" Temari demanded. "That town we drove through is miles away!"

"Someone will bring you groceries weekly. Get your bags."

The older two pulled backpacks and suitcases out of the car while Gaara stood still in the muddy grass, scowling at the house and hugging his teddy bear tightly.

"Come on," Temari snapped, stamping towards the house. The boys followed her in silence.

Inside, their temporary home didn't look any better. The apartment was cold and damp, paint and wallpaper peeled in the corners and the linoleum was cracked and worn. The rooms were furnished with odd, Western furniture which was in much the same shape as the rest of the house. A general exploration revealed a kitchen, living room, and study on the first floor, and two bedrooms on the second. From the upstairs window, they watched the shinobi drive off down the rutted lane.

"He could have told us he was leaving," Kankuro grumbled.

"I'm just as glad he's gone," said Temari. "See if you can figure out how to turn on the heat. I'll see about some dinner."

"I hope he left us something to eat."

"I brought a whole bag of food with us, remember, stupid?"

"Yeah, yeah."

As they went down the stairs, Gaara heard a further, muttered conversation.

"You two can have that bedroom, I'll take the other."

"What?" Kankuro sounded upset, "Why do _I_ have to sleep in the same room with him?"

"Someone has to keep an eye on him!"

"No way! I'm sleeping downstairs."

Gaara sat down on the dusty floor. The ancient house was silent all around him in the chilly grey twilight of this cold, distant place. After a minute, he noticed tiny footprints in the dust. It was probably mice. Gaara stared at the prints for a while, then wiped them out with his sand.

Sometime later, he heard Temari shouting up the stairs.

"Gaara! Come on down and eat!"

There were lights on in the kitchen, but it didn't seem any warmer. Kankuro had his tools out and was grumbling again.

"It's not _my_ fault the furnace is taking forever," he protested, "It's probably as old as the house. It took me half an hour to even get it lit!"

"Then tomorrow you can fix it properly."

"What?! I am not spending all day fixing a furnace! I've got to fix my puppet so I can get back to training."

"Furnace first, toys second."

"Puppets aren't toys, they're ninja tools!"

"Oh?" Temari dumped the contents of a frying pan into a bowl and set it on the rickety table, "I thought you just liked to play with dolls."

Gaara tried a forkful of Temari's concoction while the argument raged. He couldn't help making a face; Yashameru had done most of the cooking since their mother died, and Temari had never bothered to learn before. In a tiny way, the argument was comforting–at least Temari and Kankuro were still the same. _I just wish…_ _No!_ Gaara pushed the thought away. They didn't love him, and he didn't love them either. He would never love anyone. He was alone and he always would be.

In fact, Gaara was not the only one feeling lost. Yashameru's death–and their father's true attitude it had revealed–had thrown the older two siblings into confusion and disarray. Up until that point, they had been able to believe that their father had a plan for Gaara and that the attacks he arranged really were only to train and test the boy. But finding that he really wanted Gaara dead left a terrible gap in things–if Gaara wasn't working as a weapon, then their mother had been killed for nothing. Their family, their way of life, had been disrupted for nothing. Their mother and uncle had died for some mistake or miscalculation, and their little brother, the result of that mistake, would have to be killed as well. Their uncle's death had left all three siblings with no one to believe in, for if their father would so easily dispose of Yashameru and Gaara, who knew if he wouldn't someday decide they were also unnecessary?

It was a hard place to be in, especially for children who were just starting to find their places in life. Temari had just completed her training to become a genin and Kankuro was still a student. After Yashameru's death, Temari had tried to pick up the task of cooking and housekeeping with only moderate success. Now, on top of everything, they were temporary caretakers of a sullen jinchuriki.

Kankuro claimed the study for his training. He had brought a small practice puppet with him since his teacher had warned him he'd better come back showing some improvement if he wanted to graduate. Temari had a tall stack of books she was assigned to read and was making up for this hardship by grumbling constantly. Gaara, left to himself, wandered outside to look around.

He found a garden behind the house, all curving grey stone walls and cracked pavements, with nothing growing but coarse brown weeds amid the bracken of many untended years. The only bright spot of vegetation was an unkempt bush by the gate, which was a mass of dark, blood-red leaves. For some reason, Gaara found the color attractive. He'd found that something in him seemed to like the color of blood, seemed to crave it. He'd always found it frightening but now, as he considered the future from the perspective of a small, bitterly disillusioned boy, he thought it might not be so much of a problem. After all, if it was what he was meant to be, then he should embrace it as a reason for existence. If he was to have such a reason, it must be something beyond what other people thought of him. He picked a handful of the leaves.

A narrow path wound away up a brooding hill, and Gaara followed it. As he walked, he heard faint rustling noises as though something was following him off to one side. The noises stopped behind a pile of rocks; Gaara looked at them for a second, then walked on. If something was following him, it would have to look out for itself.

The shinobi had warned them about an old well on the property, and Gaara perversely decided to go in search of it. The path led through an orchard of ancient trees and finally to an odd little clearing with a ring of mushrooms in the middle. Gaara looked at the curiously; he had never seen plants like that before. This grey, damp world was so different from the harsh, blinding desert he had gown up in.

There was a strange whirring and clattering from the hill above and he looked up to see a fantastic apparition bearing down on him. It resolved itself into a black-clad figure with glowing green eyes riding some kind of bicycle. After the initial moment of surprise, Gaara scowled at the oncoming figure and stood still, watching the approach defiantly. Sand stirred the leaves at his feet.

As the bike came tearing towards him a stream of sand shot up, knocking the bike aside and sending the rider tumbling across the ground. Gaara noted in some puzzlement that his sand seemed to be responding a little slower than usual, and its color was a darker brown. It felt... _heavy._ He wondered why.

The figure was struggling to his feat, pulling off a helmet with glowing lights attached. It revealed a boy about Temari's age.

"Woah. What was _that?_ Atmospheric conditions aren't right for dust devils. Must have been some kind of freak air current. Lemme guess, you're from Texas or Utah, someplace dried out and barren, right?"

Gaara only scowled at him.

The boy had a nervous, almost lopsided air. The rustling in the grass came again, and a mean-looking black cat came out of the grass to rub against the boy's legs. Gaara's eyes narrowed.

"Is that your cat?"

"Well, he's not really my cat, he's kind of feral, you know, wild. Of course I do feed him every night and sometimes he'll come to my window and bring me little dead things."

Gaara's scowl didn't change. "There's supposed to be an old well around here."

"You're standing on it."

Gaara looked down. He was standing inside the circle of mushrooms, and now that he thought about it, the feel of the ground beneath him wasn't right. He moved to one side; the strange boy knelt down and brushed the dirt from the spot, revealing a battered metal cover, which he banged on.

"See? Supposed to be so deep that if you fell to the bottom and looked up, you'd see a sky full of stars in the middle of the day." He took a stick and pried up the cover so Gaara could see down into the hole.

"Surprised she let you move in, my grandma. She owns the Pink Palace. Won't rent to people with kids."

Gaara looked at him interrogatively.

"Oh, I'm not supposed to talk about it. I'm Whybie. Short for... Whyborn. Not my idea, of course. What'd you get saddled with?"

The young ninja turned to look at him; a breeze blew the red hair aside, exposing the mark on his forehead.

"Gaara."

"Gary what?"

The younger boy scowled again.

Whyborn didn't seem to notice. "It's not real scientific, but I've heard that an ordinary name, like Gary, can lead people to have ordinary expectations about a person."

In the distance, an elderly but powerful female voice could be heard raised for distance.

"Whyborn!"

The nervous boy flinched.

"Well, great to meet you, Gary. Oh, and you might not want to pick any more of those leaves. They're poison oak."

Whyborn rattled off on his bike in answer to the distant summons.

Gaara looked down at the leaves for a second, then scattered them slowly over the well cover. They looked like drops of blood.


	2. Chapter 2

When he got back to the house, Temari was struggling to make the awkward western beds and Kankuro was trying to fix the taps for the kitchen sink so they wouldn't leak. Neither was in a good humor. Gaara went into the living room. There was a poorly executed painting on the wall of a boy in blue with a big frown and a spilled ice cream cone. Temari had brought the photographs of their mother and uncle, and now they were set up on the mantle with candles, along with a small sand sculpture of the Kazekage's house. Gaara stared at the pictures for a minute, then went and sat down in a corner, hugging his teddy tightly. While darkness filled the house he listened to Kankuro spluttering and swearing in the kitchen and Temari stamping up and down the stairs.

"Gaara!" Temari came through the house looking for him. "Where are you?"

She finally found him, huddled in the corner, and the looming thunder clouds faded for a minute.

"Hey," she said in a softer voice, "I've got your bed made. Come on, you must be tired."

Gaara didn't answer, but he got up and followed her up the stairs. She helped him into his pajamas and tucked him in.

"I'm in the next room, okay?"

The boy's only response was a sullen look, then he rolled over with his back to her.

Kankuro was finally making progress on the rusted pipes. Temari came into the kitchen and dropped down in one of the rickety chairs, resting her chin on her hand.

"Everything okay?" Kankuro asked.

"I don't know, I've never seen him like this. It's like he's a totally different person."

"Well, he and Yashameru were really close."

"I can't believe father would tell him to _kill_ Gaara."

There was silence for a minute, then Kankuro wiggled back out from under the sink and sat up.

"Yeah."

"I mean, getting other shinobi to randomly attack him to train his reflexes is one thing, but this time he was really trying to kill him. And using Yashameru, of all people." Temari frowned, "He was the person Gaara trusted most, the person who would have had the best chance."

"He was our uncle!"

"I know."

The boy fiddled with a wrench. "Our whole family's screwed up, it's not just Gaara."

"But father says–"

"It was his idea to make Gaara!" Kankuro looked away, "And it killed mother, and now Yashameru's dead. Because father sent him to kill Gaara."

Temari winced.

"Gaara's _changed_," she said, "Always before he was sad and all that, but he just looked unhappy. He didn't look–mad. He's hardly spoken since that day!"

"Yeah, it used to be he'd come to the shop and beg me to play with him. But I actually went and found him last week and asked if he wanted to play, and he just scowled at me and walked away."

"There's something wrong," said Temari. "It's like he's completely shut everyone out."

There was silence in the kitchen. Finally, Temari broke it.

"Well, we'll just have to do our best to keep him out of trouble for the next few weeks. At least nobody here knows him so they won't be freaking out."

"Yeah. That's _one_ good thing about living in this junkheap."

Upstairs, Gaara was staring up at the cracked ceiling of the room. There had to be some purpose for his life, some reason he went on existing. It didn't help that his hand was itching.

It was raining when he woke up. Slow, steady rain that looked as though it could go on all day. He stayed in bed for a while, until Temari knocked on the door and said she was making breakfast. When he got up he found a few ounces of sand in his bed, dark and heavy and unresponsive. He still had sand he could control, but it was turning dark as well and seemed hard to move. Feeling troubled, he took one of the clumps downstairs with him.

Kankuro was in the study, working on the arm of the practice puppet he had brought. Temari was standing by the stove, attempting to make omelets. The battle could go either way. Gaara climbed into another chair and put the clump of sand on the table. He put his hands around it and concentrated hard, trying to move the particles. It felt like lifting rocks instead of grains; the sand was so much _heavier_ than before. What was wrong with it?

"No sand on the table," Temari said automatically.

Kankuro came into the kitchen with a hand off his puppet. "Man, I can't get the hang of this delicate stuff at all. I'm gonna practice at meals."

"Not you too!"

"Is there any tea?"

"Yeah, I borrowed a strainer from the ladies in apartment two. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, can you believe it? _Actresses_," the girl added, rolling her eyes.

"Geez."

"Tell me about it."

"Hey, what's up with your sand?" Kankuro leaned down to look, "That's weird."

"What is?" Temari asked.

"It's all dark and funny. When did it get like that, Gaara?"

The younger boy shrugged without taking his eyes off the clump.

Temari came over to look.

"It's wet," she said. "Did you take it in the bath with you?"

Gaara shook his head.

"It must be the weather," said Temari, looking at the rain streaming down the window. "The air is really damp out here."

"You're right. I didn't think of that."

Temari looked at the window as well. _I wonder if father thought of that? If Gaara's sand gets all wet, he won't be able to protect himself like usual._ "Wasn't there a fireplace in the living room?"

"Yeah, it's gas."

"Why don't you see if you can get it working?"

"First the furnace, now the fireplace," Kankuro grumbled, "I'm never going to get any practicing done."

After a moment, both siblings started at the sudden smell of smoke and Temari rushed back to the stove.

"Don't go outside while it's wet like this," she said while they were eating. "And spend some time by the fire when Kankuro gets it going."

Gaara didn't look up. Kankuro was using his jutsu to manipulate the puppet hand into lifting his teacup, with varying success as his concentration wavered. The boys made their way through as much of the soggy, partially burned omelets as they could and quit when they'd eaten enough to appease Temari's temper.

Temari then did the dishes while Kankuro went to see about the fireplace. Gaara went back upstairs to get his teddy. A minute later, he came running downstairs in uncharacteristic haste.

"What's wrong?" Temari asked in surprise.

"My bear's gone."

"Gone? Are you sure it's not just hiding under the blankets?"

"It's gone," Gaara repeated with certainty.

_Yashameru gave him that bear. He's always had it with him._ Temari sighed and dried her hands. "Okay, I'll help you look."

They looked in the bed, under the bed, and all through the room. Then they looked around the house. There was no sign of the bear. Kankuro, when questioned, was as puzzled as the others and checked the windows upstairs. They were locked. Gaara didn't cry or fuss, but his scowl deepened and he went into the living room and sat in a corner.

Later that morning, Temari stepped out onto the porch and found a grimy package addressed to Gary. She took it inside and opened it; it contained a note and a doll that looked exactly like Gaara. The note read, _Hey, Gary–look what I found in Gramma's trunk. Look familiar? Wybie._ Temari stared at the doll; the clothes were just like Gaara's, it had the same red hair, and there were black circles around its green button eyes. There was even red stitching on the forehead where his seal was. For some reason, she felt the hair on the back of her neck prickling.

She went into the living room.

"Gaara, do you know anyone named Wybie?"

The younger boy nodded.

"Who is he?"

"His grandmother owns this house. He has a cat."

Temari hesitated. No one ever talked with Gaara back home. Perhaps, here, where no one knew about the Tailed Beast, he could make some friends, even for a short time. She held out the doll.

"He left this for you."

Gaara took the doll and studied it for a minute, then hugged it and curled back up in his former position.

Temari went to find Kankuro.

"That is just _weird_," he said. "Who would make a doll that looked like Gaara?"

"The note said he found it."

Kankuro frowned. "Found it already looking like Gaara?"

"Maybe she made it when they told her about us," Temari suggested. "She probably felt sorry for Gaara."

"That must be it." Her brother still looked bothered, but he went back to his puppet. "This place sure is a freak house."


	3. Chapter 3

Gaara sat by himself in a corner for the rest of the day. Kankuro stayed in the study practicing and Temari worked through her textbooks and made unpracticed attempts at housework. The rain continued the next day, and the next. Although Kankuro and Temari were finally coming to terms with the reality that Gaara was not an isolated problem but rather a symptom of the disruption in their family as a whole, it would take time for the older siblings to readjust years of habit in regard to him.

Gaara wandered into the living room one afternoon in response to Temari's order to go unpack a bag of his extra clothes and take them up to his room. He stood for a minute looking up at the pictures on the mantle. _They said they loved me, but they really didn't. Nobody does. I don't have a reason to exist._

He opened the bag and pulled out some clothes. A little sand spilled out with them. It was strange being in a place without sand; Gaara had never before had to look further than the ground at his feet for sand, but now he felt at a loss. His personal sand seemed to have given up in the dampness and was now collected almost totally in a wet lump in his bedroom. The sand that formed his sand armor was still with him, but it took all his chakra to drive the water out and maintain it. Kankuro hadn't gotten around to fixing the gas fire in the living room yet.

Gaara took the clothes upstairs and came back down for his doll. To his surprise, it wasn't on the table where he'd left it. Gaara searched frantically for a minute before discovering the doll lying on the floor, halfway behind an old picture frame leaning against the wall. He pushed it aside and found the outline of a small door behind the wallpaper.

_Battle formations for two ranged ninjas and two melee ninjas, facing a group of ten foot soldiers. The ranged ninjas should stay above the enemy and at a distance of no less than thirty feet._ Temari groaned and rubbed her eyes. She didn't know how much more theory she could take. Most of it was common sense stuff anyone should know–wasn't it obvious where you should put the ranged and melee fighters? How was she supposed to remember all these diagrams? On the other hand, if she ever wanted to become a chunin, she'd _better_ know everything in the book. _Damn it._

She rested her head on her arms. _It's all falling apart. Our family, our world, everything. It's going to pieces around me._ Her tired eyes stung a little. _Mother. Why did you have to die? Why did it have to be _our_ family that the jinchuriki came through? Why did you leave us all alone?_ Their father was now the kazekage and spent all his time managing the affairs of the village, except for the hours he spent training Gaara. _But for all that he doesn't even see Gaara as his son–he's just a tool, a weapon! And he never talks to Kankuro or me at all, except at briefings._ _I remember when Father and Mother were ordinary ninjas and they loved us and we were happy together._

Now even Yashameru, the glue that had held the family together since their mother's death, was gone and ominous cracks were forming around what little was left. Their father's expectations were clear–she and Kankuro would become exceptional ninjas and Gaara would be the village's ultimate weapon. That they were–or had been–a family was of no importance. _I don't want to be a legendary ninja. I just want my family back!_ Temari clenched her fists; all that was left of her family was herself and her brothers. Whatever it took, she would hang onto that. She would learn to cook and keep house and be a little mother as well as a big sister. She would learn to fight better than any genin in her class, but she would do it so she could hold this little fragment of family together. _I don't want fame or victory. I want peace–peace so that neither my family nor other families will be broken up by wars or power struggles._

There was a soft sound and she looked up to see Gaara standing in the doorway with his doll.

"What?"

"There's a door in the wall."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

She followed Gaara into the living room and he showed her the outline.

"Oh. It's probably just for fixing the pipes and stuff."

"Open it?"

"You don't need to be getting into stuff and I have to get my homework done."

Gaara looked down and hugged the doll tighter.

Temari relented a little, "Okay, okay, I'll open it."

She went to the drawer in the kitchen were all the keys were kept and began sorting through them. _I've got to be more of a mother and less of a big sister. He's never been a bad kid, he's just… different._ Finally she found one that looked promising–an old-fashioned key with a handle in the shape of a button. She went back into the living room with Gaara trailing behind her and cut the wallpaper around the door. The key fit and turned with a rusty click. Gaara's face fell.

Behind the door was nothing but a brick wall.

"Sorry," said Temari. "That's all there is."

Her brother turned and walked off under his private cloud of gloom.

That night, Gaara had a dream. In the stillness, he heard faint squeaking and saw tiny forms flitting about near his door. He got up and followed them; in the hall, he saw several tiny, long-tailed mice hopping daintily about like little kangaroos. They bounced off down the stairs, cheeping softly and rather musically. Gaara followed them into the living room, where they disappeared under the crack beneath the little door. Curious, Gaara opened the door. His eyes widened as instead of a brick wall, he saw a softly glowing tunnel leading away into mysterious shadows.

After a minute, Gaara crawled into the tunnel. It extended for about twenty feet, then came out into… the living room. He stood up and looked around, puzzled. He was back in the living room. Only he wasn't; as he looked, he realized there were subtle differences in this room. The boy in the picture over the mantle was smiling, and there was a delicious smell in the air. A light was coming from the kitchen, and Gaara walked towards it. He stopped in the doorway and stiffened; a figure was standing there, a figure he'd only seen in pictures and his dreams. She was humming the same little tune Yashameru used to sing to him, the one he said Gaara's mother had sung to him when he, Yashameru, was a little boy.

The figure turned. It was his mother, just as she looked in the pictures, but with one strange exception–instead of eyes, she had two black buttons where her eyes would have been.

"You're just in time for supper, dear," she said in a soft, sweet voice.

Gaara stared at her in confusion, then his eyes narrowed.

"You're not my mother."

"Of course not. I'm your _other_ mother, silly. Now go tell your other father that supper's ready."

Gaara didn't move.

"Well go on. He's in his study."

Gaara scowled at the mention of his father, but went to the next room. In the study, a man who looked exactly like his father–except for button eyes–was manipulating a large teddy bear puppet, making it dance.

"My father can't use puppets," Gaara said coldly.

"No need," said the other father with a smile, "this puppet can control me."

The teddy bear raised its paws and the other father began dancing, all the while singing a perky little song.

_"Thinkin' up a song about our Gaara!_

_ He's a bud, he's a pal, he's a fine fella!_

_ He's as cute as a button in the eyes_

_ Of everyone whoever laid their eyes on our Gaara!_

_ When he comes around exploring_

_ Mom and I will never ever make it boring_

_ Our eyes will be on our Gaara!"_

Gaara watched in silence. When the song was over, he said,

"It's time to eat."

"Mmm, who's starving? Raise your hand!"

The teddy bear raised both paws and he raised his hands. He followed Gaara back to the kitchen, where the other mother was setting a beautifully roasted chicken on the table. The smell filled the kitchen and made Gaara's mouth water in spite of himself.

"We give our thanks and ask to bless" the other father said playfully when they sat down, "our mother's golden chicken breast!"

The other mother laughed. The sound tugged at Gaara's heart; he'd always wanted to hear his mother laugh. Why had she died and left him all alone?

He ate until he was stuffed. A week of living on Temari's cooking had left him more than happy to eat mashed potatoes and other western foods with relish, and the chicken was one of the tastiest things he could ever remember eating. _Yashameru used to cook things just for me. Why did he pretend to love me if he really hated me so much?_

The other mother went to the oven and took out a large chocolate cake, which she set in front of Gaara. While he watched, lit candles appeared on the top and a line of icing wrote a message in a spidery script: _Welcome home!_

"We've been waiting for you, Gaara."

"For me?"

"Yep," said the other father, "Wouldn't have been the same without you, kiddo."

"Who are you?" Gaara asked, still suspicious.

"I'm you're _other_ mother. And as soon as you're through eating, I thought we'd play a game."

Gaara's eyes narrowed again. No one, _ever_, wanted to play with him.

"Like tag or maybe hide and seek," the other mother added. "In the rain."

Gaara glanced at the window, "What rain?"

There was a flash of lightning with thunder following immediately after and heavy drops began splattering against the glass. The boy stared for a second, his feeling of unease growing.

"It makes the sand wet."

"So? Wet sand is just as good. We can make sand pies and sand castles and maybe find a sand dollar. Besides, it's _great_ for poison oak."

Gaara looked down at the itchy rash on his hand.

"How did you know I had poison oak?"

The other mother had come over to stand beside his chair. Gaara stood up.

"I have to get back to bed before Temari starts looking for me."

"Of course, sweetheart. It's all made up."

The other mother and father took him upstairs to a room just like his own, only clean and warm, with a fire burning on the grate. The bed was made with a soft, fluffy comforter and there were strange and wonderful toys on the shelves. A little flock of paper cranes flew through the air, whispering softly,

"Hello, Gaara."

The other mother put him to bed and kissed him, then took a small jar and spread something damp and sandy on Gaara's hand.

"See you soon," the other mother and father said gently.

They sat by his side, humming softly, until he went to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

When Gaara woke up, he was back in his old room in the damp, grey house of cold, cheerless days. He got up and dressed, noticing as he did so that the rash on his hand was gone. He went downstairs, going first to the living room where he checked the small door and found nothing but bricks behind it. He went into the kitchen where Temari was once again struggling to make breakfast.

"You look sleepy," said Kankuro, opening and closing the puppet hand in practice.

"I had a dream."

"Oh? What about?"

"Mother." Gaara hugged the doll and said nothing more.

Temari and Kankuro traded looks.

"Gaara, after breakfast, will you run some errands for me?" Temari asked.

Gaara lifted his tea cup with both hands, but didn't answer.

"There are some packages for apartment three that have been left on our porch, and then I need you to take the tea strainer back downstairs to Miss Spink and Miss Forcible. Can you do that for me?"

Gaara nodded.

"And _you,_" the girl added to her other brother, "need to fix the gas burner in the fireplace."

"I need to get some metal tubing," Kankuro said defensively.

"All right, put anything you need on the shopping list and I'll try to get them to pick some up for us when they bring us groceries."

After another breakfast unremarkable in the culinary department, Gaara went outside to the porch. The rain had stopped for a little and a thick fog was growing along the ground. The stack of packages sitting by their door were made of brown paper and had strange, foreign stamps in the corner. The name written on them was 'Bobinski.' What kind of name was that? There was an odd smell and Gaara sniffed one closely, jerking back with a disgusted expression. He scowled at the staircase up to the garret apartment; why couldn't this Bobinski person keep track of his own mail?

Gaara gathered the smelly packages into an awkward armload and climbed up the rusted stairs to apartment three. A rather faded red flag hung from a pole over the door. He knocked on the cracked wood and waited. After a minute, he knocked again. When there was no answer, he tried the handle; the door was unlocked, and creaked open to reveal a dim, cluttered room with a chicken strutting about on a wooden table and a cage full of dainty, bouncing little animals. They were mice, he realized, just like the ones he had followed into the other house.

Something inside him _pulsed_ suddenly, resonating with his sand armor, and Gaara felt tiny fragments of dust and dirt in the surrounding area jerk in response to the inner call for _sand._ He also knew that there was someone behind him and turned around just as a long arm reached over and slammed the door shut.

"Secret!" a heavily accented voice growled. "Famous jumping mouse circus not ready, little boy!"

Gaara scowled at the strange man, who took a crunchy bite out of a raw vegetable as he swung easily from the flagpole by his feet.

"These are yours," he said coldly, holding out the packages.

The man's face lit up and he snatched the packages, sniffing them deeply.

"Ahh. New cheese samples." He dropped down to the balcony. "Very clever, using this mixup to sneak my home and peek at mushkas."

Gaara's eyes narrowed.

"Who are you, little boy?" the man asked.

"Gaara," the perverse feeling was boiling up inside again, "Gaara of the Sand Village."

"Ah, Gary. And I am the amazing Bobinski. But you, call me Mr. B, because amazing, I already know that I am."

The acrobat, until this point walking on his hands on the railing, dropped cleanly off the balcony into the mist. A few seconds later, he landed on the balcony again from another angle.

"You see, Gary," he said in a more explanatory voice, "the problem is my new songs go oompa, oompa, but the jumping mice play only tootle-toot, like that. Is nice, but, not so much amazing. So now, I switch to stronger cheese, and soon, perfect!"

He snapped to attention and saluted an imaginary audience.

"Here. Have beet; make you strong."

He handed Gaara an oddly shaped, deep red vegetable. Gaara studied the beet. As with the leaves the first day, something about the color struck a chord deep inside him, as though something was stirring in the depths of his mind. _Red. Blood red. _

"Dosvidanya, Gary." The acrobat vanished inside his room like a magician.

_Gaara._ With a final scowl, the boy turned and made his way back down the stairs.

As he walked along the path by the house, curious about the fog (a phenomenon he'd never seen before) he heard a call from up above.

"Hey, Gary, wait!" It was Mr. Bobinski again, and as Gaara looked up the man jumped off the balcony and plunged straight towards him.

Without even an instinctive thought, he felt the armor dissolve off his legs and a thin shield snapped into place above him. The acrobat landed neatly, almost on top of him, and Gaara glowered at him through the shield of sand. _If I just reached out, I could crush him! _

"Hey, Gary," the man said, looking secretive, "The mice asked me to give you message. They are saying: do not go through little door. Do you know such a thing?"

Gaara's eyes widened involuntarily. Little door? The one the mice had run through? The one to the _other _house?

"Bah. So sorry; is nothing. Sometimes the mice are little mixed up. They even get your name wrong, you know? They call you Gaara instead of Gary. Not Gary at all! Maybe I work them too hard." The acrobat sprang easily back up to the stairs and swung his way around the house, out of sight. Gaara stared after him for a minute.

The sand was quickly growing heavy in the damp air and Gaara formed it back into the sand armor. This place wasn't good for it, it was too wet. _Maybe that's why they sent me here. Maybe they're going to try to kill me again._ Gaara took the doll out from where he'd tucked it in the fold of his scarf and hugged it. _I'm not going to die._


	5. Chapter 5

When he went back inside, Temari gave him the tea strainer and sent him downstairs. There were narrow concrete steps leading down a door below ground level. Gaara knocked on the door with the twin masks knocker and waited. All at once, there came a chorus of shrill barking from inside and several furry noses were poked up to the glass. A minute later there was a strident voice alternately calling them good boys and chiding them to be quiet. The door opened to reveal several small, stiff-haired dogs and a short, heavy-set old woman with bright red hair and a walker.

"Oh, cease your infernal yapping!" she ordered. "So nice to see you, Gary. Your sister said you had red hair like mine. Would you like to come in? We were playing cards."

The dogs, which had rushed out to sniff Gaara, on getting their first good whiff had jumped back then run inside as quickly as their short legs could carry them. The boy felt a sort of satisfaction about this. _They're afraid of me. I don't care if they don't like me as long as they stay out of my way._ He followed the heavy-set woman inside.

"Miriam," she called, "Put the kettle on!"

As they went into the living room a taller, large-busted woman in the kitchen raised a pair of antique eyeglasses and squinted at them.

"April, I think you're being followed."

"It's the new neighbor, Miriam. Gary–Tammy's little brother. He's here to return the spare tea strainer."

Gaara looked around curiously. The apartment was filled with old posters and dusty mementos of a stage career that had apparently been on the wild side. The only thing he could remember seeing that was similar was a large poster for some book about flirting in paradise, or some such nonsense.

At the back of the room, behind a saggy sofa, was a cabinet with what looked like remarkably realistic toy dogs with little white robes and golden wings.

"What are those?" he asked.

"Our sweet, departed angels. Couldn't bear to part with them. So we had them stuffed." She began rattling off a list of names as the taller woman came out with a tray containing teacups and a dish of strange, lumpy candy.

"Oh go on. Have one. It's hand-pulled taffy from Brighton. Best in the world."

As the list of names went on, Gaara tugged experimentally at a piece, only to find it stuck solid.

"I'll read them for you, if you like," the plump woman offered, settling a worn purple turban on her head.

"Huh?"

"Oh, your tea leaves, dear. They'll tell me your future. Drink up, then; go on. Oh, not all of it! That's right. Now hand it over."

She took the tea cup and swirled the last drops carefully, murmuring mysteriously.

"Ooooh, Gary," she said in a sonorous tone, "Gary, Gary, Gary! You are in terrible danger."

"Oh, give me that cup, April. Your eyes are going."

"My eyes, you're blind as a bat!"

"Well, not to worry, child, it's good news. There's a tall, beautiful blonde in your future."

"Oh, Miriam!" Miss Spink took the cup back, "Oh really, you're holding it wrong! See? Danger!"

"What do you see?" Gaara asked.

"I see a very peculiar hand."

"_I_ see a giraffe," said Miss Forcible.

Gaara stared down at the bowl of rock-hard taffy. Danger? It was certainly likely he would be attacked again soon.

"What should I do?" he asked.

"Never wear green in your dressing room," the short woman advised.

"Acquire a very tall stepladder."

"And be very, very careful."

_So much for actual help._ He got up to leave.

"Thanks for the tea."

"Tootle-oo!"

"Cheery-bye!"

Gaara walked back up the dripping stairs. Danger? He'd always been in danger. From everyone. No one liked him, no one wanted to be around him. The one person who'd seemed to care about him had tried to kill him. _Wanted_ to kill him. He was nothing but a monster to everyone. His own father wanted him dead and his sister and brother were afraid of him. _Am I even really a person?_

The fog was thicker than before. As Gaara made his way back towards the front of the house, he became aware of someone trying–not very successfully–to sneak through the fog after him. He stopped, scowling.

"What do you want?" he asked without turning.

There was the rustle of someone trying to hide. Sullen anger boiled up inside Gaara, like a red mist over his vision. _I am tired of being followed and spied on!_ Something deep inside him began to _pulse_ with that anger and a power he associated with the ever-protective sand seemed to flow into his right arm. Without really thinking, he turned and reached out towards the lurker. Sand swirled around his arm and stretched out, only this time it looked faintly like a great paw. It wasn't heavy like it had been.

He grabbed the helmet poking up through the fog and jerked it away, sending Whyborn rolling head over heels in the mist.

"Hey!"

"Why are you following me?"

"Oh, I–I don't want anything. We're out hunting banana slugs."

"We?"

The cat crawled out of his coat and took up a position on his shoulder.

Gaara glared at him. The red mist hadn't quite subsided, or the feeling of power.

"What? He hates to get his feet wet, geez!"

Whybie picked up his helmet and turned a periscope attachment so he could see under the fog.

"Did you make this doll look like me?" Gaara asked.

"Oh no. I found it that way. It's older than grandma. Old as this house, probably."

"Red hair, black circles around the eyes, and a mark on the forehead?"

"Dang!" Whybie plucked a large yellow slug from the ground with his tongs and held it up, "Check out slugzilla!"

_Everyone ignores me. But they're not… scared of me._

"Hey, you mind?" The other boy pulled out a camera and handed it to Gaara.

Something about the gesture dissipated the last of the anger. _He's weird, but he treats me like a normal person. He's not scared of me, and he doesn't stare at me like the people in the village. Even though he's seen the sand._ Maybe, maybe things could be _different_ here.

He didn't realize that Whyborn's helmet had been on the few times he'd actually used the sand in the other boy's presence.

Gaara took several pictures of Whybie posing with his slug.

"You know," the other boy said at last, "I've never been inside the Pink Palace. Grandma'd kill me. She thinks it's dangerous or something."

"Dangerous?"

"Well, she had a twin sister. When they were kids, grandma's sister disappeared. She says she was… stolen."

In the distance, the sound of a frying pan beaten with a spoon rang sharply.

"Whyborn!"

"I gotta go." The boy hopped on his bike and peddled off.

Gaara watched him go. "Bye," he said softly.


	6. Chapter 6

After supper, Gaara snuck a fragment of cheese out of the refrigerator on his way upstairs. He left it by the doorway, in case the mice came back.

He was awakened by faint squeaks and rolled over to see several mice hopping off with bits of the cheese. He climbed out of bed and hurried after them. Down the stairs, through the hall, into the living room, and back to the little door. The tunnel was there again, and he crawled through into the other house.

"Welcome back, darling," said the other mother. "So thoughtful of you to send this nice cheddar, Gaara."

Gaara saw she was grating cheese onto an omelet. Unlike Temari's attempts, this was a light, fluffy creation that sizzled appetizingly in the pan.

"Would you go fetch your father? I bet he's hungry as a pumpkin by now."

"You mean my other father."

"Your better father, dear. He's out in the garden."

"But, my parents never gardened," Gaara began.

"Shh!"

The other mother picked a ripe strawberry from a bowl and stuffed it neatly in Gaara's mouth. He bit into the lush berry, tasting for the first time the tangy sweetness of the unknown fruit. And it was red, too.

"Go on," said the other mother.

Gaara went. _It's nice here. There's good things to eat and no one's trying to kill me. And they actually _want_ me here._

Gaara went down to the garden, which unlike the garden back in the other world, was well kept and blooming with all sorts of strange and beautiful flowers. As he opened the gate, three small, glowing birds zipped up and hovered for a moment, their wings moving so fast they were blurs. The birds darted from flower to flower, and each blossom they touched began to glow like the birds until the whole garden was a mass of living, colored lanterns glowing with soft light in the darkness.

He had never seen a regular garden, much less a wonderland like this. Once, he had been inside the greenhouse where the Sand Village grew their medicinal plants, but the medical ninjas had been uneasy about a _jinchuriki_ getting so close to their precious flowers and herbs, difficult to keep alive in the harsh desert climate. He followed the birds through the garden, marveling at each new flower, more beautiful than the one before. Deep inside, something seemed to ease its grip on him a little. _It's so lovely._

The other father appeared at the edge of the garden, riding a large mechanical insect which was planting seeds for more flowers. To Gaara's wonder, the flowers sprang up, blooming, a few seconds after they were planted. They were a deep, vivid red and the hummingbirds made themselves busy lighting them up. As he stood watching, some yellow flowers on long stalks began nuzzling him, making little barking chirps and trying to tickle him. His sand showed no inclination to regard them as a threat. The red hot desire to destroy didn't rise this time but instead a strange, bubbling feeling that Gaara vaguely remembered as a giggle rose in its place.

"Whoa, son in a scrape!" The other father picked a large, horn-shaped blossom and blew a melodic blast as he steered the mechanical insect over to where Gaara was half-heartedly fending off the snap dragons. He cut the stems with a sweep of the insect's leg and caught the blossoms in a neat bouquet. "You can take these in to mother."

"It's time to eat," said Gaara.

"Hop on, kiddo. I have to show you something."

The other father lifted Gaara onto the insect with him and pulled a lever. Delicate helicopter blades sprang up and the insect lifted into the air as they whirled in the cool night air. They rose up, up, up until they could look down on the whole garden, and Gaara caught his breath as he realized that the colored flowers were massed to paint a face visible from above–a face with green eyes, bright red hair, and a mark on the forehead.

"That's me."

_ And I'm… smiling._ His misgivings about this place seemed to vanish for a moment; perhaps he could be happy here, where people wanted him and didn't stare at him with hard, unforgiving eyes.

"Mother said you'd like it. She knows you like the back of her hand."

At that, Gaara felt something stir warningly inside him. _But she doesn't know about the tailed beast, does she?_ The misgivings came back again, _Do they really love me?_ _Or are they like Yashameru, just waiting for me to lower my guard?_

They had dinner in the warm, cozy kitchen and again Gaara ate until he was stuffed. It was a nice feeling.

"Gaara, Mr. Bobinski has invited you to come see the jumping mice perform after dinner."

"Really?" He considered this. In one of their earlier conversations, Whyborn had opined that Mr. Bobinski was a complete nutcase and didn't even have any mice. "Whybie said it was all in his head. But I've seen the mice, so I knew that was wrong."

"Well, everything's right in this world, kiddo," said the other father.

"Your father and I will clean up," said the other mother, "while you and your friend head upstairs."

"My friend?"

The other mother went to the door and opened it. Whyborn stood on the doorstep–only this Whyborn had buttons instead of eyes and a big, empty smile.

"Whybie?" Gaara got up and came over, "You come here too?"

The other Whybie only waved a gloved hand.

"Whybie?"

The other mother came over and patted Whyborn's head.

"I thought you'd like him more if he spoke a little less. So I fixed him."

"He can't talk at all?"

"Nope."

Gaara was silent for a minute. The warning stir came again, accompanied by what was almost a faint whispering inside him.

"Oh."

"Now run along, you two. And have fun."

Gaara followed the other Whyborn out of the house and around to the stairs.

"What did she do?" he asked. "Is it the buttons?"

The other Whyborn pointed to a small blue balloon-shaped object floating towards apartment three. It flew through a little hatch above the door. They knocked, and a moment later the door swung suddenly, rotating at the center like a paddle wheel. The other Whyborn was caught up and tossed inside while Gaara, who had not trained as a ninja for nothing, jumped out of the way of the swinging door and landed neatly on the railing behind him. The door stopped rotating, and after a minute Gaara got down and walked through under the panel. The other Whyborn was picking himself up off the floor, the silent smile still on his face.

The room was the same size and shape of the attic he had seen in the real world, but here there was no clutter or dust. Two rows of toy cannons led the way to a chicken-shaped machine beside a small, orange-striped tent. The other Whyborn stepped on a little peddle beside a cannon and a wad of fluffy pink shot out on a small stick. When Gaara only looked puzzled, he held it out, indicating that Gaara should taste it. He pulled off a scrap and tried it gingerly; it was sweet–almost too sweet to eat–but it was delicious. The other Whybie handed him the whole wad and got another for himself.

They went down to the machine, which was turning out little paper bags of some white, crispy substance which Gaara was also unfamiliar with. He took a bag and tried it; it was crunchy, salty, and buttery. _I've never had anything like this stuff. They have strange food here–but it's so tasty!_

"Ladies and gentlemans," came Mr. Bobinski's voice from the tent, "For to tickle your eyes and ears, and make your hearts to hum, I, Sergey Alexander Bobinski, invite you to see my astounding, stupendulous, and amazing jumping mouse circus!"

They crawled inside during this announcement, and found what had appeared to be a tiny tent was, on the inside, as large as the Kazekage's house. The blue balloon flew up to the top, then descended gracefully in the middle of the ring, where it popped open as several dozen delicate jumping mice sprang out, their long tails forming the word _Gaara._

"That's my name."

Gaara turned to the other Whyborn, just in time to see an unhappy frown just vanishing from the other boy's face. The other Whyborn nodded and gave him the empty smile again. Gaara turned back to watch the circus with new questions flooding his mind.

The circus was indeed amazing. The mice played tiny instruments and hopped in all sorts of complicated patterns to brisk polka music. The tiny drum major stood on top of a little red ball, which he rolled around while keeping his balance perfectly. When the routines were over, Gaara and the other Whyborn both clapped. Still troubled by misgivings, Gaara said nothing.

"Very, very tank you, lady and gentleman," said Mr. Bobinski–with button eyes. "You're very welcome any time you like, you and also your good friend there. Dosvedanya, Gaara."

They went back downstairs. The other mother and father put Gaara to bed in the warm, firelit bedroom. It was odd that the other Whyborn was there as well. The feeling of unease wouldn't go away and he wondered why; everyone was kind to him here and listened to him and paid attention to him, there was plenty of good things to eat and no one stared at him. They couldn't, with button eyes…


	7. Chapter 7

Gaara woke up in his cold, grey room, to the smell of something burning in the kitchen. He got up and dressed, then remembered the cheese he'd put out. Sure enough, it was gone. He hurried downstairs and tried to open the door–it didn't budge. After pulling again, he realized it was locked. Temari must have locked it. He went into the kitchen where, as he'd expected, Kankuro was preoccupied with his puppet and Temari was burning breakfast.

"There you are. The shinobi's going to drop off groceries for us today, and we're going into town with him to get some other stuff. Just stay inside until we get back, okay?"

"Why can't I come?" He didn't miss the look that passed between his siblings.

"Gaara, it's just best if you stay here," said Temari. "Is there anything you want to eat this next week?"

Gaara shook his head. "What do you think is in the other apartment?" he asked after a minute.

"It's empty."

"Why did you lock the door?"

"Oh. There were rat droppings in there and I've heard some squeaking in the house nights. Besides, I thought you'd feel safer."

"They're mice. And I _like_ the dreams."

There was a pause and Kankuro glanced nervously at Temari's back. After a minute she turned around.

"Look, Gaara, I know you like the dreams, but I don't think they're good for you. You said yourself they weren't like normal dreams; it could be a form of _genjutsu_ or something. We have to be careful."

"Careful I don't go crazy?" Gaara said sullenly. "You're just like father."

Kankuro stiffened. Temari was silent for a minute, then she sighed.

"I know we're not much of a family any more. But we have to stick together; we _are_ brothers and sisters."

"You don't want me. You've _never_ wanted me, either of you." Gaara hugged his doll and walked to the hall door, "Nobody in the village wants me."

"Gaara–"

The doorbell rang, cutting Temari off. She went to answer it with a snort of frustration.

"What?!"

"I brought your groceries," said the shinobi. "Has there been any trouble with Gaara?"

"No. He's been fine." She took the bag and set it on the table, adding, "There's some other stuff we need from town. Can we ride in with you?"

"Only one of you. He's not to be left alone. Those are the Kazekage's orders."

"I _know_ what my father ordered. All right, Kankuro, you stay here."

"Why _me?_"

"Because you're hopeless at shopping! I'll get the tubing and solder."

"Okay, geez."

Gaara, standing just around the corner in the hall, heard all this and hugged his doll tighter. Everyone here either hated him or was scared of him.

After Temari left, Kankuro dumped the rest of his breakfast and went into the study.

"I'm gonna be practicing," he said, shutting the door.

_And I'm going back to the other world._ Gaara went into the kitchen and searched the key drawer; finding nothing, he looked around until he saw the button-handled key hanging from a nail high on the wall. With a scowl, he dissolved his sand armor to reach up and knock the key loose. _I don't need this there. No one's trying to kill me._ He left the sand on the floor and went into the living room.

Gaara unlocked the little door and opened it. As he'd secretly hoped, instead of the bricks, he saw the glowing tunnel from his dreams. He crawled inside, coming out a minute later in the other living room. He found no one, but in the kitchen an array of strange foods were laid out giving off savory smells. There was a note addressed to him.

_Dearest Gaara, Miss Spink and Miss Forcible have invited you downstairs after lunch. Father and I will be home soon. Love, Mother._

He was invited downstairs? He'd never been invited anywhere before. Gaara sat down and ate lunch, beginning with a curious round, flat something of bread with cheese and little circles of meat on it. It was delicious.

After lunch, he went outside. Strangely enough it was still night outside; as he looked up, he saw a scraggly black cat just like the one who followed Whybie around back in the other world. The cat looked back at him with big blue eyes, then hopped down onto the railing nearby and began licking a paw. Gaara watched it, unsure what seemed odd about the animal. After a minute he realized it was the blue eyes–the cat had _eyes_ instead of buttons.

"If you're the other cat," he said aloud, "Why don't you have button eyes?"

The cat looked up. "I'm not the other anything. I'm _me_."

Gaara stared at the cat for a minute. "How can you talk?"

"I just can." The cat leapt neatly down and stalked over to a fallen tree trunk.

"What are you?"

"I'm just a cat–no more, and certainly no less."

"How did you get here?" Gaara asked.

"I've been coming here for a while." The cat disappeared into a hole in the tree trunk, then appeared out of a hole in another trunk a few feet away. "It's a game we play. _She_ hates cats, and tries to keep me out. But she can't, of course. I come and go as I please."

"You mean the Other Mother? She hates cats?"

"Not like any _mother_ I've ever known."

"What do you mean? She's the first person who's really cared about me."

"You probably think this world is a dream come true. But you're wrong. The Other Whybie told me so."

"He can't talk."

"Perhaps not to you. We cats, however, have far superior senses than humans. We can see and smell and–" he stiffened, "Shh! I hear something. Right over… _mrow_." The cat vanished over the porch roof.

In the distance, Gaara heard a musical sound as of instruments being tuned. He stood still for a minute; the cat's claims had awakened the restlessness inside him and he could feel that uneasy _something_ stirring. _What if she's lying, too?_ No, it couldn't be. Not in this Other world, this place where people actually wanted him.

Gaara followed the sound around to the little stairway down to the apartment shared by Miss Spink and Miss Forcible.


	8. Chapter 8

He entered the apartment to find the curtained entryway of a theater. A small dog trotted up with a flashlight held in its mouth; he followed it into a huge, high-ceilinged room filled with row on row of plush red seats. Currently all those seats were filled with other dogs, all wagging their tails in excitement. His guide led him to the front row, where there was an empty seat in the middle next to the Other Whybie. He sat down and the performance began.

Miss Spink and Miss Forcible appeared alternately, dressed in extremely scanty costumes and singing little songs about catching men. It didn't make much sense to Gaara, but he didn't feel as though people were staring at him, wishing he'd leave. At one point both ladies appeared on platforms high above the stage, tottering to the edge as though they were about to leap. Then each one unzipped the suit she was wearing to reveal themselves as pretty young ladies with button eyes. They leaped gracefully off to swing back and forth on trapezes, performing a series of beautiful acrobatic maneuvers to the delighted barking of the dogs. Gaara and the Other Whybie applauded as well.

When the show was over, they walked out together and found the Other Mother and Father waiting at the top of the stairs.

"Hey there."

"Was it wonderful, dear?"

"Yeah. Did you know they weren't really old ladies? I don't think they were much older then Temari."

_Temari. I wonder what happened when they found I was gone?_ Distracted for a moment, Gaara suddenly noticed that the Other Whybie was standing a little ways apart, his shoulders slumped and an unhappy expression on his face.

"Appearances can be deceiving, darling." The Other Mother shooed him along with her into the house. "You _do_ like it here, don't you Gaara?"

"Uh-huh. Goodnight, Whybie."

She paused at the door and Gaara glanced back to see the Other Whybie standing outside with an attitude of hopeless dejection. _The Other Whybie told me so._ That was what the cat had said. But what did it mean? The Other Mother was wonderful to him!

"You could stay here forever," the Other Mother continued, "if you want to."

"Really?"

"Sure," said the Other Father. "We'll sing and play games and Mother will cook your favorite meals."

"There's one tiny little thing we need to do."

The Other Mother helped Gaara into a seat at the table.

"What?"

"Well, it's a surprise," said the Other Father as the Other Mother left the room for a moment.

She came back in holding a small box tied with a ribbon, which she slid across the table to Gaara.

"For you, our little doll."

Gaara opened the box, then paused in confusion. Inside were two black buttons and a needle with heavy black thread.

"Black is traditional, but if you'd prefer blue," the Other Mother touched her eyes and the buttons turned blue, "but if you'd prefer vermillion–" the Other Father's eyes turned red, "or chartreuse–" the buttons in the box turned green, "though you might make me jealous."

Gaara stared at her aghast, as though the world had been turned upside down. She wanted to sew _buttons_ in his eyes?

"No!" he cried after a minute.

"Oh, but we need a _yes_, if you want to stay here."

"So sharp, you won't feel a thi–ow!"

The Other Mother kicked the Other Father, under the table.

"It's your decision, darling. We only want what's best for you."

Gaara was silent. The Other Mother got up and came over, putting the box on the table in front of him. Gaara stared at it for a long minute before slipping out of his chair.

"I'm going to bed," he said in a low, expressionless voice.

"Bed?" the Other Mother said in surprise.

"Before dinner?" said the Other Father.

Gaara walked out of the room and down the hall to the stairs.

"You want me to tuck you in?"

"No."

The Other Mother was in front of him, suddenly.

"We aren't worried at all, darling," she said sweetly. "Soon you'll see things our way."

She touched Gaara's face with a slender finger, and he felt that _something_ pulse inside him, reaching out for sand and frustrated at finding none. He went upstairs and shut the door to his bedroom, locking it behind him. The living toys began talking to him all at once, variations on the theme of_ you want to stay, don't you? _Gaara scowled darkly and stuffed them one by one into the large toybox. He was leaving this place and he wasn't coming back.

He climbed into bed and pulled the covers over his head, willing himself to go to sleep. As he did so, he felt a curious moment of _passing_–as though he were walking down a dark corridor from waking to sleeping, and something inside him was going the other way. He paused.

_Who are you?_

There was no answer, but it was as though something caressed him in the darkness, and a voice half-remembered, half-dreamed whispered to him just below the range of hearing. It was a strange moment and to Gaara it seemed as though he was just now meeting someone who had been with him as long as he'd lived. Someone older, wiser, and much stronger than he was, someone who protected and watched over his every moment.

_Mother?_ Gaara wasn't even sure why that name came to mind, but the darkness caressed his consciousness again, as if to say _Sleep in peace, I will watch over you._

A minute later, Gaara was asleep. A moment after that, Gaara's eyelids snapped open, only the eyes looking out were no longer a sad, human green but ancient, calculating navy orbs with a sand-colored star in the middle of each. Gaara slept–and Shukaku woke and looked around. The One-Tail's eyes narrowed. It could see through the blankets and walls to the true shape of this little world and the stars fastened malevolently on a mass of chakra some distance away. So _that_ was the thing that had snared his _jinchuriki_ and was now trying to gain control of him. Well, that Other creature was going to get a surprise. Shukakau would see to that!

He started to move, then stopped. The _jinchuriki _had somehow managed to lose the sand that Shukaku automatically drew to them. _Fool!_ The eyes narrowed again. There was sand in this world, but it was imbued with the Other creature's chakra. Fighting it would be difficult if Shukaku had nothing of his own to work with. Well, he would bide his time, then, and in the meantime concentrate on getting a firm foothold in the confused _jinchuriki's_ mind.

For a long time there had been another presence denying him the bitterness, the rage he needed to control the boy. But they had killed that other presence–Shukaku chuckled inside at the memory of the rooftop ambush–and now the way was clear. He had felt, of late, another presence timidly attempting to reach Gaara, but he had waited long enough for this opportunity and wasn't about to lose his chance of control to that snivvling brat of an older sister who couldn't make up her mind. Besides–Temari wasn't here. He had Gaara all to himself, and he knew now how to control the boy. It was a delicious irony, but that Other creature had shown him the way and now he would use it to bind his _jinchuriki_ to his will and eventually free himself of this prison of flesh.

Yes, now that he had learned hate, Gaara would make a fine tool for Shukaku's use.


	9. Chapter 9

Gaara awoke feeling refreshed and sat up, pulling the blankets off his head. His relief evaporated as he saw he was still in the Other bedroom, and the moon was still shining brightly outside the window. _I'm still here?_ He drew his knees up and hugged them; why wasn't he back in his real bedroom? He had always woken up there before. Except this time, he reminded himself, he hadn't dreamed himself here. He had gone through the door while he was awake.

If that was the case, then, he had to go back through the door while awake. But the Other Mother wasn't likely to let him just go back. He had been a fool to leave the sand behind, now he had nothing to fight with. As if in answer to the thought, the Something inside him swirled up and this time Gaara welcomed the familiar sensation. _I'm still Gaara of the Sand Village,_ he thought. _What I am frightens hardened ninjas; I can get out of this world if I try._

He got up and put on his sandals. He'd been well-trained by his real father, even if it was only as a weapon and not as a son. Well, he would be a weapon, then. What purpose did a son have? What purpose did his sister and brother have? None–their father had made_ that_ clear. But a weapon... Gaara unlocked the door and started downstairs. A weapon had purpose. _He_ could have purpose. The inner presence curled around him, close and comforting.

He walked quietly down the stairs, not provoking the tiniest creak, and tried the living room doors – they were locked. He thought for a moment, then went to the study. The Other Father was there, vaguely raising the arms of the teddy bear puppet. He seemed slow, almost dazed.

"Where is she?" Gaara asked.

"All will be swell as soon as Mother's refreshed. Her strength is our strength." The puppet suddenly grabbed him, covering his mouth with one paw and shaking the other at him warningly.

"Mustn't talk when Mother's not here," the Other Father said obediently.

Gaara's eyes narrowed. "Then I'll have to find the Other Whybie."

"No point. He pulled a long face–_and Mother didn't like it_."

The puppet grabbed him again, spinning him around, away from Gaara.

Gaara scowled at the pair, then turned and left the room. He walked outside and looked up at the dark, starry sky above. _I know I slept for hours. It shouldn't still be dark out; this must be genjutsu._ He closed his eyes and concentrated, feeling a weakening of the chakra field in the distance. He walked towards it, along the path to the orchard.

When he reached the orchard, he found the landscape seemed to shrivel up beyond that point. The trees grew thin and sketchy as though little effort was being put into maintaining them. This is the edge of the illusion. Gaara sensed a living creature near him and looked down–it was the cat.

"And what do you think you're doing?" the cat asked, falling into step with him.

"Leaving."

A few yards further on, the ground and sky vanished into a blank whiteness. There was still something solid underfoot and there was no sense of chakra.

"What is this?" he asked, "It's not genjutsu."

"It's the empty part of this world."

They walked on.

"She only made what she knew would impress you," the cat added.

"Why?" Gaara asked tonelessly.

"She wants something to love–I think–something that isn't _her_. Or maybe, she just loves something to eat."

Something_ pulsed_ inside Gaara, a feeling of anger and power. Power–he welcomed the thought. Ahead of them, the house appeared as though out of the fog, and a moment later they passed back into the chakra field of the genjutsu and the nighttime world reappeared around them.

"We were walking away."

"We walked around the world," the cat said carelessly.

This wasn't a regular genjutsu field, then. The whole thing was in some Other place–and _that_ was what he had to escape. Gaara stopped, studying the house. The passage back to the real world must be inside. It could be hard to find inside the genjutsu, but he'd just have to find it.

A sudden, raucous trumpeting startled them both.

"Hang on," the cat whispered, crouching.

It darted towards a bush and one of the jumping mice leaped out, blowing on a tiny horn. The cat pounced on it and seized the little rodent, breaking it's back in a single snap. The creature hung for a moment, then Gaara felt chakra flowing out of it and the form shifted and grew into that of an ugly, misshapen rat. Sand dribbled out of the carcase from the mouth and the holes where the cat had punctured it, leaving the body limp and empty like an unstuffed doll. _Dolls–that's it. She uses puppet jutsu, like Kankuro._

"I don't like rats at the best of times," the cat commented, "but this one was sounding an alarm."

Gaara bent down and put a hand over the sand scattered in the grass, forcing his own chakra into it. It wasn't _much_ sand, but it was a start and now he had a weapon. He stood up and walked towards the house. _I'm going back now._

At the living room door, Gaara brought out his handful of sand and forced it into the lock, pushing the bolt back to open the door. He had to push directly against the Other chakra, but he got it open. The room was dark and the light from the hall fell on the small door he had originally come through. Then something moved and a large insect, shaped like a chest of drawers, scuttled over and sat down in front of the little door. Lights came on in the room and he heard the Other Mother speaking.

"They say even the proudest spirit can be broken–with love."

Now that he was conscious of the genjutsu field, he could feel the powerful chakra in the Other Mother. Gaara let himself be scooped up by an insectoid chair, but sent a few pinches of sand drifting quietly towards the little door.

The Other Mother offered him a box of wiggling candies.

"And, of course, chocolate never hurts. Like one? They're cocoa beetles–from Zanzibar."

The sand reached the door and through the feel, Gaara could tell that it was indeed the passageway back to the real world. He looked her squarely in her button eyes.

"I'm going back to my world. Don't get in my way."

The Other Mother put her hands on her hips.

"Is that any way to talk to your mother?"

Gaara's eyes narrowed. "_You aren't my mother_."

"Apologize at once, Gaara."

_I am no longer a child–I am Gaara of Sand._

"No."

"I'll give you to the count of three. One."

Gaara didn't respond.

"Two." The Other Mother's form began changing, growing taller and thinner. She was revealing her true form, then.

The power of her chakra increased with her anger and Gaara realized he couldn't take her directly–not without more sand.

"Three!"

She grabbed Gaara by his nose and dragged him out into the hallway, where a full length mirror hung. She pushed him _through_ the mirror, into a damp, dark place. Gaara rolled to his feet and took a defensive stance. The Other Mother's head and arms stuck through the mirror for a moment.

"You may come out when you've learned to be a loving son," she said, then vanished back through the surface.

Gaara went and put a hand on the wall, trying to push through it with his last few pinches of sand. It was a very _dense_ chakra wall. Gaara closed his eyes, letting the dark, burning feeling of anger and power course through him. There was something comforting, familiar about it. Something he associated with his earliest childhood–and strangely, with his mother. His real mother, the one who had died hating him and cursing him with this power. But perhaps, he thought in the darkness, it wasn't a curse after all.


	10. Chapter 10

A soft sound in the darkness behind him broke Gaara's train of thought. He turned to see a faint glow illuminating one corner.

"Who are you?" he asked coldly.

"Hush," said a child's voice.

"And shush," cautioned another, "for the Belledame might be listening."

Gaara walked towards the glow, finding a rusty metal bedstead supporting a soggy, fetid mattress with a pool of water in the middle.

"You mean Her?"

The glow was three objects, hidden under a decaying sheet. Gaara pulled it aside and saw three transparent, faintly glowing figures huddled against the wall. There were two girls and a boy, and all had button eyes. They weren't creations, though–there was no feel of chakra about them, only something _else_, eerie and disquieting. They didn't sit on the bed or stand, but hovered in the air.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"Don't remember our names," said the small boy ghost, "But I remember my true Mommy."

"Why are you here?" Gaara asked.

"The Belledame," they replied in unison, then the smaller girl spoke.

"She spied on our lives through the little doll's eyes."

"And saw that we weren't happy," added the boy.

"So she lured us away," said the older girl, "with treasures and treats."

"And games to play," said the smaller girl.

"Gave all that we asked," said the boy.

"Yet we still wanted more," continued the smaller girl.

The older girl drifted though Gaara, as insubstantial as air. "So we let her sew the buttons."

"She said that she loved us," said the boy.

"But she locked us here," said the older girl, then they said in unison,

"_And ate up our lives_."

Gaara was silent. If this truly was some sort of Other world, then perhaps the souls of those who died here had nowhere to go–remaining trapped in this chakra prison, forever. But she hadn't put buttons on his eyes yet.

"Can she take your life without the buttons?"

"The buttons are her power," said the older girl.

"She uses them to control everything," added the boy.

"Once she sews the buttons on," said the younger girl, "You will be hers forever."

"Then I'll just have to escape."

The three ghosts watched him for a minute, then the smaller girl floated forward.

"Perhaps, if you do win your escape," she said with a faint hope, "You could find our eyes."

"She took your real eyes?"

"Yes, and hid them."

"Find our eyes, young master," said the boy, "and our souls will be freed."

As Gaara considered this, he sensed a breech in the chakra wall behind him as someone reached through. He let himself be grabbed and pulled through–then he slammed an elbow into the unseen figure's ribs and spun around to deliver a kick to the face. The Other Whybie was thrown into the corner with a sickening smack and Gaara paused instead of running forward to attack again. The doll cowered in a heap, trying to protect his face. Gaara saw that the corners of the mouth had been pulled back and _sewed_ into a horrible grin.

He reached out with the sand, _slicing_ through the stitches. The Other Whybie rubbed his face in relief, then looked up at Gaara with a determined expression. He caught Gaara's hand and pulled him quickly into the living room. The room was empty and together they pushed the insect cabinet aside–it fell with a heavy _crunch_ and almost immediately, a voice called out from upstairs,

"Gaara? Is that you?"

The Other Whybie pulled the little door open and motioned Gaara through. No longer a glowing purple fantasy, the tunnel was revealed as a dusty, cobwebby passage filled with bits and pieces of toys and things as old as the house.

"Gaara?"

The young ninja crawled in, turning to beckon the other to follow.

"Come on."

The Other Whybie shook his head sadly. He pulled off one of his gloves, exposing a hand formed out of sand. He blew on it and the hand disappeared in a swirl of grains. _He can't leave,_ Gaara realized, _he's a creation of this world_. There were steps on the stairs now.

"Gaara? How_ dare_ you disobey your mother?"

The Other Whybie slammed the little door behind him and Gaara turned and scrambled through the tunnel. He tumbled into the living room and slammed the door behind him, turning the key in the lock. He felt the absence of chakra and stood up, relieved. He was back in the cold gray daylight of the pink house.

He ran into the kitchen and found it empty. A bag of groceries sat on the table, but a cloud of small flies hovered about it. Puzzled, Gaara went to the study and found it empty as well. Kankuro's puppet and tools lay on the floor where he had been working. Gaara went upstairs and found the rooms empty. As he stood for a moment, he heard the doorbell ring. He hurried downstairs and pulled the door open, to find Whybie standing on the porch with an appologetic expression.

"So, uh, you know that old doll I gave you?" the boy said, "My Gramma's real mad. Says it was her sister's–the one that disappeared. It looked just like you, so I thought–yeah. Anyway, I really need to get that doll."

"It's a puppet," said Gaara. "It's how she watches people."

"Who? Gramma?"

Gaara rolled his eyes in frustration. "Just come on."

"I'm really not supposed to be in here," Whybie said anxiously as he followed Gaara up the stairs.

Gaara looked under the covers, then beneath the bed. The doll was nowhere to be seen. He looked all around the room, then his eye fell on the lump of heavy, wet sand.

"I'm not letting this go, ever again," he said quietly, putting a hand on the lump and forcing chakra into it. The sand was heavy but the power pusling with his anger helped.

"W-what are you doing?" Whybie asked.

"I'm getting my sand back."

The lump began to break up and float around him, sluggish in the damp air.

"How are you doing that?" the other boy backed nervously to the door.

Gaara looked up. "You've seen it before."

"No, that's just freaky." Whybie was in the hallway now, "Just what_ are_ you?"

A little something seemed to flicker and die inside Gaara, opening the way to more darkness. _I thought we might have been friends. I thought it would be different here. But people treat me the same no matter where I go._

"I am Gaara of Sand."

"You. Are. A. Freak," Whybie said as a parting shot, and raced off down the stairs.

Gaara stood silently in the chilly bedroom, the sand swirling caressingly around him. His eyes narrowed and for a moment a strange beast-shape with two larger, older eyes appeared in the sand above him, tail curling around the young jinchuriki.


	11. Chapter 11

When the shinobi had dropped Temari back at the house, she left the groceries on the table and went to find Kankuro.

"I got the tubing. Can you fix the fireplace now?"

The younger boy was intent on his puppet. "What's the rush?"

"Just do it, okay?"

"All right, all right. Sheesh."

Kankuro gathered a few tools and took the tubing into the living room.

"This place hasn't been taken care of in ages," he grumbled, "It's a junkheap that just hasn't fallen down yet."

Temari stood in the doorway, watching him.

"What are we going to do, Kankuro?" she asked at last.

"About what?"

"Gaara, of course."

"How should _I_ know?"

"He _is_ our brother, even if he's a…" the girl stopped.

"A _jinchuriki_." Her brother looked up. "Hey, Temari, you don't think _it's_ got anything to do with this mood swing, do you?"

"I don't know. What if Yashameru's death somehow stirred it up? The sand always protects him, what if it's somehow trying to protect him from _people?_"

"What are we going to do if it is?"

"I'm more worried about what _father's_ going to do."

Kankuro scowled. "They killed mother to make Gaara into this secret weapon, and now that they've got it they're scared of him. Idiots."

"What if he _does_ go crazy or something?"

"They'll kill him."

"He's our _brother._"

"You never seemed to care about that before."

Temari looked down. "I know. I guess–I was scared."

Kankuro worked in silence for a minute.

"All I can remember is that when Gaara was born, mother died," he said gruffly, "And everyone else seemed to hate Gaara, so I thought I should hate him too. I felt bad sometimes, cause he looked so sad, but I told myself it was _his_ fault mother died and everyone else treated him the same way. You were always better to him than I was."

Temari folded her arms for comfort.

"Back before they decided to make him a _jinchuriki_–back when mother was first carrying him–she was really happy about having another baby. She talked a lot about what they might name him if he was a boy or a girl, and how we would need to take care of him and teach him things. When she found out what they wanted to do–what _father_ had suggested to the council–she was so upset. I listened behind doors for a while until I found out what _jinchuriki_ meant, and then I was scared and mad all together. But what could I do about it?" Temari sighed in frustration, "Yashameru was so good with him and I didn't know what to do, and it was so easy to just ignore him. Then I'd think about mother and I'd feel bad and try to play with him, but there was always that _sand_."

"It always freaks me out, too. The way it moves without him even controlling it. _Something's_ making it go; it's got to be that _thing._"

"Even if it is, he's never hurt anyone except by accident. He hasn't _been_ the monster people keep calling him. But I'm afraid they're making him into that."

Kankuro looked up, startled. "What do you mean?"

"I've been thinking about things since it happened. No matter how good of a kid he is, if everyone hates him and treats him like a monster, he's going to start hating them in return. Yashameru said something like that once when I asked him how he could be so patient with Gaara. He said that love had set Gaara apart and love was the only thing that could save him."

"Do you think mother really loved him?" Kankuro asked.

Temari's eyes were distant. "If she had lived, mother would have loved him no matter what he'd been."

Kankuro soldered some tubing into place.

"So," Temari's voice became harder, "What are we going to do?"

"About Gaara?"

"About everything. It's time we woke up, Kankuro."

"Huh?"

"It's not just Gaara. Look, everyone thinks Gaara's a monster, right? And we're his sister and brother. Don't tell me you haven't noticed _we're_ treated differently as well."

Kankuro scowled. "Yeah. I've noticed."

"So whose side are we gonna be on?"

"Huh?"

"We can't stay in the middle any longer. Either we side with the village and agree Gaara's a monster, or we say he's not and get lumped together with him in their eyes."

"What about father?" Kankuro asked.

"I don't think he'll get rid of Gaara. If he could survive a serious attack like that, from someone he trusted, father's not going to keep counting him as a mistake. He's got a lot of power. Ever since that attack when the third Kazekage disappeared, the village really wants a secret weapon in case of emergency. Gaara is going to be that weapon. But if things go on the way they are, he's going to become something a lot worse than they imagine."

"But what can _we_ do?"

"We can stand _with_ him instead of _against_ him."

"But if he's shut everyone out–"

"We dropped the ball," Temari interrupted. "We _could_ have been there for him, all these years he's been wandering around lost. We _could_ have been the big sister and brother he wanted. But we ignored him because we didn't want to be associated with him. It's _our_ fault we don't have any real connection with our brother. I don't know if we can change that now, but I think we owe it to him to try. To Gaara, to Yashameru, and really to mother."

Kankuro sat up and turned the valve. He lit a match and after sputtering for a moment, the gas fire lit and burned steadily.

"What if he doesn't want us any more?"

"He can't go on alone forever. Someday... he'll need us. We've just got to stay on his side and be there for him when that happens."

Kankuro started gathering up his tools. Temari straightened up, then froze as she suddenly recognized chakra pouring into the room from the little door. It rose around her in patterns she understood. _Genjutsu!_

"Kankuro! Get out of here!"

Even as she spoke the room around her whirled away into a sea of chaos.

Temari brought her hands together and concentrated. _Release!_ There was a break in the _genjutsu_ and she jumped for it, falling into some kind of net. She managed to come up in a defensive position. She could see Kankuro struggling nearby, still caught in the _jutsu_. She sliced an opening in the chakra field and grabbed her brother's shoulder, forcing chakra into him to break the _genjutsu_.

"Kankuro!"

"What the hell?" Kankuro took up a position beside her. "Who's attacking us? Where _are_ we?"

Outside the net there was nothing, only an endless sea of white in all directions.

"I don't know! My fan's upstairs."

"Great!" Kankuro concentrated on the soldering iron he was holding, attaching chakra strings to it. It wasn't much, but it was _something_.

"_Above!_" Temari shouted the warning and leaped out of the way as a terrifying creature darted towards them.

The _genjutsu_ rose around them again, stronger and filled with malice.

_Release!_ Temari managed to dispell it again, but it was much harder. She saw Kankuro trying, but his focus wasn't strong enough. There was no time to reach him again–the creature was coming towards her and without her fan, Temari had only her _taijutsu_ to rely on.


	12. Chapter 12

Gaara explored the house thoroughly but found no sign of Temari or Kankuro. The groceries Temari had bought were on the table and there were tools and bits of pipe by the fireplace where Kankuro had fixed it, but his siblings were gone. He went back to the living room, where he found the cat pacing nervously by the fire. Gaara's eyes narrowed.

"You know where they are."

The cat stared up at him with wide blue eyes, then nodded. It led the way to the mirror in the hallway and the surface clouded for a moment, then revealed Temari and Kankuro sitting in what appeared to be a room made of sand. Temari looked up and saw him; her face tightened with emotion and she looked for a moment more like a woman than a child. She reached up and scratched a word in the wall behind her–_Run_–before turning back to give her youngest brother a look that reminded him of Yashameru before the betrayal. Then the image vanished as some other chakra swirled up, cutting off the vision. Gaara's expression remained stony.

"How?"

The cat ran over to the couch and pulled something out from under it; Gaara picked up the missing doll and saw that it had been remade–one side was dressed like Temari, the other like Kankuro. He could feel, through the darkness pulsing inside him, the chakra strings attached to the doll and with a snort of disgust he flung the doll into the fire and watched it burn. As the cloth was consumed, the doll split and sand ran out to mix with the ashes.

_Sand._

Gaara's eyes narrowed again and he held out a hand; the sand swirled up out of the fireplace to join his own sand, feeling light and smooth. The young ninja pushed his own sand over to hover around the flames, letting the heat drive the water out. He could feel the other presence, the enveloping darkness, hinting things to him in the shapes of his sand as it swirled and shimmered in the heat.

Temari and Kankuro had been captured by the Other Mother. If they were still gone when the shinobi came to check on them, he would be blamed. No one would believe_ him_ if he said a strange creature had stolen them. Gaara watched the sand swirl. He knew the Other Mother is real; now how could he prove it? _I've seen her. She kidnapped Temari and Kankuro. _

_ She hurt someone, _the darkness prompted.

_I know she's real because she hurt someone. Hurting someone proves her existence._ Gaara's face was impassive in the red glow. _A person can prove their existence by hurting another._

_Fight,_ whispered the darkness.

_If I fight her, I won't just prove she exists–I'll prove _I_ exist. And if I win, I'll prove I'm stronger than she is._

_Live._ The thought had edges that dripped with blood; a vista seemed to open before the jinchuriki–an endless dark field of fallen enemies and a red trail that led to a burning, nightmare figure–a man no one dared to disbelieve in, a man with blood-red hair and the word _love_ burned on his forehead. _Prove your existence, Gaara of Sand._

Gaara sat cross-legged by the fireplace, waiting patiently until his sand was completely dry. The Other Mother was strong and skilled in genjutsu, and probably other things as well. _But I'm stronger._ There was the troubling necessity of saving Temari and Kankuro before he killed her–if he didn't bring them back alive, he would be blamed for their deaths. Gaara tested his sand and found it ready; he stood up, letting it swirl around him before he drew it in to form the sand armor. He felt strangely confident about his powers now, with the inner presence guiding him. _I am a ninja. I am Gaara of Sand._

He unlocked the little door and started into the tunnel. The cat followed him, picking its way through the debris with ease.

"You know you're walking right into Her trap."

"Yes." _That's exactly what I want to do._

The cat was silent for a minute.

"Challenge her," he suggested. "She may not play fair, but she won't refuse. She's got a thing for games."

Gaara nodded.

The cat suddenly flattened himself against the side of the tunnel as the door on the other end opened. Temari was kneeling by the door, looking into the tunnel.

"Gaara? You came back for us!"

The young ninja snorted softly, but crawled out into the room. Temari threw her arms around him, but Gaara shrugged her off.

"Temari never hugs me."

The figure changed, stretching and thinning to become the Other Mother.

"Well. You see how much better off you are with me?" She bent down and clapped; one of the rat puppets came running down the tunnel, carrying the key. The Other Mother took it and locked the door, then swallowed it, giving Gaara a dangerously sweet smile.

The young ninja's eyes narrowed. The key must be more than just a way of locking the door on the human side; she wouldn't be so careful of it unless it was more. He concentrated on the genjutsu field where the door was–to his surprise, he couldn't find the door, only a thick wall of chakra. _I'll have to get that key back._

One of the insectoid pieces of furniture, a large chest of drawers, scuttled over and planted itself firmly in front of the door. The Other Mother turned and walked into the kitchen. Gaara stood silently for a minute, thinking. Then, on the edge of his perception, he felt a tiny twitch of chakra–a moment later he found the source, a single grain of sand with a minute chakra thread attached to it. _Puppet jutsu. Kankuro._ He tried to trace the thread, but it was swallowed up by the genjutsu field. They must be close, here in this "room" where the chakra of the genjutsu was strongest.

A tiny bell rang in the kitchen.

"Breakfast time!"

Gaara walked into the kitchen. The Other Mother was humming the old tune, making bacon and eggs at the stove. _I have to lead her into letting me find them. She likes playing with her prey–she'll let me get almost to the end if she thinks she can beat me. _

"Let's play a game."

"What kind of game?"

"I'll look for the other two and see if I can find them."

"Too easy."

Gaara thought for a minute.

"The other two and the eyes of the ghost children."

"Huh. What if you _don't_ find them?"

"Then I'll stay here. And let you sew buttons in my eyes."

"And if you somehow win this game?"

"If I find them, you let everyone go."

"Deal."

"Give me a clue first."

"Oh. Right." The Other Mother thought for a minute. "In each of three wonders I've made just for you, a ghost's eye is lost in plain sight."

Gaara filed the clue away for later. "And the other two?"

The Other Mother smiled and tapped one of her button eyes. Gaara returned her gaze levelly.

"I accept."

He felt the swirl in the genjutsu as the Other Mother simply vanished. _So._ Gaara considered his position–he had five hidden items to find inside a genjutsu field. Where would he start? _In each of three wonders I've made just for you._ Wonders? What had the Other Mother made specifically for him? Gaara's eyes went to the window, then narrowed. The garden. Yes, the garden, the theater, and the mouse circus. Those were the three wonders. A ghost's eye was hidden in each, providing the power for the extra genjutsu. He would start there.


	13. Chapter 13

(OOC: sorry for the delay and short post, things have been insane here.)

Gaara walked out to the garden. Finding a chakra source in a genjutsu field would be difficult, but as he felt the dark swirl in his own chakra, he thought he could begin to sense fine details through his sand. Why had he never taken advantage of his powers? These powers that set him apart from the village and his own family made him so much stronger than they were – and since they didn't want him, why should he care what they thought?

Inside the garden all was silent. There was no sign of the hummingbirds and the little frog was gone. Gaara stood still in the middle of the garden, folding his arms and concentrating his focus on the cloud of fine sand held around him by his own chakra. Working with slow care, he spread the invisible particles out over the garden feeling the shape of the genjutsu. Power. A strong chakra source. _There._

Gaara turned, sending more fine sand clustering around the point source. There was a rustle in the leaves, then the insect-like tractor machine suddenly reared up out of the debris and started towards him. The Other Father was riding it, but held in place by thick chakra strings of puppet jutsu. Gaara stood his ground, evaluating the situation as the machine came towards him, forward blades swinging dangerously.

"So sorry," the Other Father protested, "Don't want to hurt you–Mother's making me do it."

Gaara stepped back unhurriedly over the little bridge, drawing the enemy after him. The Other Father struggled against the chakra strings, trying to pull his hands loose. Gaara's sand clustered around the chakra source–the red knob on the end of the gearshift. _That's it._ He sent more sand curling around the bridge itself, finding the support beams.

The Other Father got one hand free, then the other. He immediately grabbed the knob and began twisting it off with the assistance of the sand. The machine was squarely on the bridge now and Gaara held out a hand, clenching it to crush the bridge supports. There was a crashing, rending sound and the machine lurched and tumbled halfway into the deep pool below. The knob came free with a last twist and the Other Father held it up.

"Take it!"

With a gurgling splash, the machine–with the Other Father still held tight by the chakra strings–sank into the depths and the lily pads closed over it. The knob, borne by a little cloud of sand, floated over to Gaara's hand. There was a tinkling sound, like little bells, and the face of the little ghost boy appeared in a soft glow in the knob.

_Bless you, you found me,_ he said, _But there are still two more!_

Gaara tucked the knob into his scarf and looked up at the house, his eyes narrowing. If this was as hard as the Game would be, he didn't need to worry about using the newfound depths of power and hatred that swirled darkly below him.

_Love no one but yourself,_ the darkness whispered.


	14. Chapter 14

Overhead, a curved shadow began to come over the full moon. Gaara made his way around the house and down the steps to the basement apartment of the Other Misses Spink and Forcible. On opening the door, he found the same theater as before, only empty and silent except for a faint, scratchy singing like an old recording. A flashlight lay on the floor at his feet; Gaara stopped for a minute to consider, then walked past.

There were a few lights on the stage and he headed down the aisle in silence. As he approached the stage, a bank of lights came on with a _chunk_ revealing what looked like an enormous piece of paper-wrapped candy hanging in the center of the stage like some bizarre set piece. He leaped lightly to the stage and approached it carefully, reaching out with his sand grains to sense the chakra locus. It was there, inside the shape.

He made a slicing motion, cutting the paper open, then drew the object surrounding the ghost eye out towards him. It appeared to be two entwined hands, one pink and the other green. Sand swirled around the fingers, prying them apart until Gaara could see the ring on the pink hand. _That's it._

He reached out to pull the ring off, but was not completely surprised when the hands, formerly unresponsive, tried to shut over his. The rest of the creature burst out of the wrapper, a twisted imitation of the two women in pink and green candy with button eyes. His sand blocked the grasping hands, but it was a struggle to get the ring off the finger.

"Thief!" the Siamese creature shrieked, "Give it back!"

Gaara heard the rustle from the ceiling and knew the noisy struggle had stirred up some other lurker. He glanced up quickly and saw a huge colony of dog-like bats, each almost his own size, swooping down towards him. The bats on one side, the creature crawling towards him on the other. Gaara's eyes narrowed and he stood still; as the two forces reached him, a barrier of sand rose up, surrounding him, and the bats beat themselves uselessly against it to be deflected across the stage. Then the sand exploded outwards, knocking the creature back and ripping the ring from the pink hand.

There was a moment of silence, then the room turned gray and brittle as the garden had and Gaara was left holding the pearl ring. There was a tinkling sound and a soft glow of chakra from the pearl.

"Hurry on, boy," the voice of the older ghost girl urged, "Her web is unwinding!"

Gaara tucked the pearl in his scarf, along with the knob, and made his way outside and up the stairs to the attic apartment and the third Wonder.


	15. Chapter 15

As he climbed the stairs, Gaara saw that the strange shadow was moving further over the face of the full moon. It was beginning to look like a button; although if one spent enough time in this place, everything seemed to take on a buttonish tinge. Something was flapping from the flagpole over the apartment in the chilly night breeze, although it was no longer the faded red flag from the Real World. In this Other world, eerily silhouetted against the night sky, were the strung-together gloves, coat, jeans, and shoes of the Other Whybie. _She killed him. Because he helped me._ Gaara scowled up at the ragged clothes. Someone had liked him, helped him, and been killed for it. The darkness inside stretched itself in the expanding channel of hatred; _pay her back, avenge the Other Whybie. You have the power, Gaara of Sand._

_I have the power. _Gaara's fists tightened, dragging little streams of sand up to him from the ground a floor and a half below. _I have the power to make her pay for this._ The pulsing inside was stronger than ever and sand began to coat his right arm in some curious but strangely familiar way, giving him the feeling of something half-remembered, half-dreamed. Part of him felt frightened but at the same time he knew that the power could drive away his fears. Crush them, bury them in sand to be forgotten like a bleached skeleton in the shifting desert dunes. The door came open a few inches with a creak and he walked inside without hesitation.

The attic apartment was a dusty space littered with faded and broken pieces of the circus. Rusted cannons and tattered posters might have been there a century and as the door shut behind him Gaara felt something move, skittering across the floor in a twitching, chaotic mass of chakra. He stood still, following it with his senses until it reared up beside him, a puppet-like scarecrow in the tattered garments of the ringleader.

"Hello, babushka," it said in a slurred voice. "Is thees what you're looking for?"

Movement rippled along the crawling sleeves and a red rubber ball rolled out into one glove. Gaara concentrated, sensing the powerful locus of chakra in the ball.

"Yes."

"You tink winning game is _good_ thing?" the puppet said, mockingly, sliding around the room in a sickeningly twisty and vermin-like manner. "Just go home and be hated and neglected, same as always? Stay here vith us. Ve vill listen to you, and laugh viz you. If you stay here, you can have vatever you vant, Gaara, alvays."

"You don't know what I want," Gaara said quietly, "And you couldn't give it to me. You're only a puppet modeled after a real person."

"Not even that, anymore."

The figure seemed to come apart–the pulled-down hat fell off to reveal the sneering, toothy grin of a rat and the clothing collapsed as dozens more poured out of the sleeves, pants, and neck of the garments. Gaara didn't move as they scurried past him with loathsome cavortings, but concentrated on the locus of chakra in the last Ghost Eye. He could sense it even through the tangle of chakra from the rat puppets and turned to see the chief rat, in a little drum-major's hat, easily balancing on top of a cheese wheel as he rolled his way towards the door, shaking his tail tauntingly. Other rats had run to the rusty cannons and Gaara saw they were tempting him into a gauntlet to race after the ball.

_Stupid puppets. _The _jinchuriki's_ eyes narrowed and he held out his right hand. Sand shot out in a living stream, taking the form of a hand itself as it darted across the room in pursuit of the rat with the Eye. The chief rat gave a squeak of surprise and tried to jump away, but Gaara caught him easily and knew without being told how to crush his prey with the hand. The other rats spun the cannons and fired sticky wads of spun sugar at him, but his sand shield blocked them automatically. A strange joy seemed to fill him; he felt the fizzle of chakra as he crushed the puppet and delighted in it. The other rats froze, then vanished into holes in the walls and floor. Gaara drew the Eye back to his own hand, letting the sand swirl around him caressingly. _I don't have to be afraid._


	16. Chapter 16

Gaara looked up at the sudden rustling, cracking sound from outside. He ran out to the balcony in time to see the button-shaped moon begin to splinter and the sky unravel, like paint peeling off a crumbling wall, leaving only a blank whiteness behind. This is bad. The young ninja jumped down off the balcony and landed neatly in the grass to be confronted by the wide blue eyes of the cat. It's fur stood on end and it seemed paralyzed as it watched the destruction finish the sky off at the horizon and then start on the landscape in an onrushing wave of disintegration.

"Come on!" Gaara picked the cat up and tucked him hastily in his scarf, racing around the house towards the front door as the grass of the yard began to fly away in loose patches of sod. The boards of the porch were coming unnailed as he jumped over the steps; all was being drawn irresistibly into the white void surrounding them. Gaara tugged on the door, forcing sand around the lock to pry it open. It came loose just in time and he slammed it behind them, shutting the void outside.

Inside the house all was still, but beginning at the outer walls, the wallpaper began to turn gray and peel off the walls as he watched. He could sense the enemy's chakra field, much weaker now, struggling to maintain the illusion around them.

Gaara stood up and started down the hall; he knew where to go even without the flickering green light coming from the open door to the living room. _And now it's you and me._ Gaara reached for the power inside and felt it wrap comfortingly around him; it was there, warm and dark and powerful, understanding his need and eager to help. It would protect him, and with its help, there was nothing he couldn't do.

The living room was clearly spider-like now, decorated in spider webs and living, insectoid furniture. Gaara could feel the chakra pattern now, tangled and matted at the edges but essentially no more or less than a giant web. He sensed his enemy behind the caterpillar-patterned sofa drawn close to the fire and walked warily towards it.

"So," said a quiet, slightly hoarse voice, "You're back. And you brought _vermin_ with you."

Gaara felt the cat stiffen in the fold of his scarf. The illusion of beauty was gone now; the Other Mother was tall, skeletally thin, with a face that seemed made of mottled bone and hands like an array of needles.

"What's it to you?" he asked coldly.

The figure rose, "You _know_ I love you."

In the dim green light, the kanji on Gaara's forehead glowed red for an instant.

"You don't understand love."

The Other Mother shrugged carelessly.

"So. Where are they, the Ghost Eyes?"

Gaara took the knob, the pearl, and the ball from his scarf and held them out. With the motion, he also scattered a fine mist of almost invisible sand grains that began to drift silently towards the unseen strands of the chakra web. The Other Mother examined the objects, then made a snatch at them, but Gaara's reflexes were much faster and he pulled them back.

"We aren't finished yet."

"No, I suppose not. After all, you still need to find your old family, don't you?"

Gaara was silent while the Other Mother chuckled softly. One of the Ghost Eyes tinkled faintly for attention and he glanced down surreptitiously.

"Be clever, boy," the Ghost Boy whispered, "Even if you win, she'll never let you go!"

Gaara glanced from the Eye to the outline of the little door in the wall; the faint glow of a chakra seal surrounded it for a moment. He stood for a moment, letting the Other Mother savor his dilemma while he reached out through his sand grains, searching.

"I know where they are."

"Oh? Well, produce them!"

"They're behind that door." He pointed to the last link to the Real World.

"Oh they are, are they?"

The Other Mother smiled evilly and stalked over to the door, waving the insect wardrobe covering it out of the way. She had four legs now, he noted. He pushed the sand faster, tracing the web for any large locus of chakra. It would take a good amount, in her weakened state, for the Other Mother to hold Temari and Kankuro, but he had to find them before the fight began or they might be sucked into the white void when the last of the illusion was swept away. _And then everyone will say I killed them._ Gaara felt the darkness embrace him; _Let them. I will protect you._


	17. Chapter 17

In the tiny prison of sand, Temari slammed a fist against the wall in frustration. Not a grain was disturbed.

"Oh _geez_," Kankuro said nervously, "Why couldn't he have stalled a little longer and looked harder?"

"We've got to get through to him!"

"How?" her brother asked with brutal practicality. "We've spent the last day or so trying every technique we know to break out of this thing and we can't even scratch the walls!"

"_I'm not going to watch him die!"_ Temari screamed, backing away from the window in furious desperation. Kankuro wisely decided this was not the time for more logic. Temari took a small notebook from her pocket and ripped several pages of notes out, tossing them at her brother.

"Make puppets! Paper dolls, pinwheels, _anything!_"

She tore the cardboard cover off and began forcing it into rough pleats.

"I watched. Mom die. And I am not. Watching. Gaara. Die. _Too_."

"The chakra is too strong," Kankuro said carefully.

"_We're not trying to break it!_ If we force her to put _more_ chakra into holding us, he might notice it, and it'll weaken her even more for the fight! It's the only thing we can do!"

"Okay, okay, geez," Kankuro held up his hands placatingly, "I got it now."

"Then make some puppets and put everything you've got into attacking that barrier! _Hurry!_"


	18. Chapter 18

The Other Mother coughed for a moment, regurgitating the key she had swallowed earlier. With a smile of cat-like enjoyment, she unlocked the little door and swung it open. Through the senses of his cloud of nearly invisible sand, Gaara felt _chakra_ flowing along her webbing to a large knot above the fireplace. _There._ He concentrated on the little sand model, driving his own _chakra_ into it and pulling the foreign sand into his own cloud.

The walls of the prison began to crumble.

"He's breaking through!" Kankuro shouted.

"As soon as we're out, get Gaara out of there!"

"What?"

"The door is open–get out while you can!"

"What about _her?_"

"I'll distract her. Save yourself and Gaara!"

"What? No, Temari–"

"You're wrong, Gaara, they aren't there. Now," she held up a spool of thread and a needle, "you're going to stay here _forever._"

Without taking his eyes off the Other Mother, Gaara reached out a fist towards the fireplace, then spread his fingers apart. The sand model shattered and Temari and Kankuro tumbled to the floor. Temari landed neatly, then ran straight for the Other Mother, slashing out ribbons of wind with the tiny paperboard fan. _These two are the only family I have left–I won't let you have them!_

"_Go! Go!"_ she screamed at the boys.

Kankuro hesitated an instant, then jumped to Gaara's side, grabbing his shoulder.

"Don't just stand there, come on!"

The cat took his advice and leaped towards the door, vanishing through it in wide-eyed haste. The Other Mother laughed; thick, resilient strands of _chakra_ webbing blocked Temari's attacks and as the girl charged her she slashed out with one claw. Temari's mouth opened in a soundless expression of pain as the needle-like fingers stabbed into her abdomen, the impetus of her charge driving them deeper.

"You should learn to respect your _mother_."

The young ninja sank to her knees, coughing blood.

"_Temari!_" Kankuro shouted. "You monster, you're not our mother!"

"You're just not _seeing_ things my way," the Other Mother purred, turning towards the boys, "But you will. _All_ of you will."

"_You can't have them!" _

Temari moved with desperate energy, slashing up towards the creature's face with the crumpled fan. A ribbon of wind sliced cleanly through the threads holding the button eyes on; two black buttons tumbled into the whiteness as the Other Mother screamed in genuine pain and fury. The rest of the room shattered around them. Kankuro found himself falling and grabbed a strand of the now-visible web as Temari and the Other Mother plummeted to the center of the web.

"You little brat! I'll kill you!"

"_Temari!"_ Kankuro covered his eyes as the creature pounced on the girl, with eight needle-tipped legs clawing for a vital spot.

There was another scream from the Other Mother, but it was a sound of anger instead of triumph. Kankuro looked up to see Temari surrounded by a thick cocoon of sand, in which the Other Mother's arms and legs were trapped. The sand was steadily flowing up the creature's legs, engulfing them in a heavy prison of _chakra_-charged particles. Gaara was hovering nearby, standing on a little cloud of sand suspended by his _chakra._ Kankuro caught his breath; no, that wasn't human _chakra_–it was something else, something terrible in its depth and power. Sand swirled around the boy, forming a large, paw-like shape around his right arm. But what really frightened Kankuro were the boy's eyes–they were cold and emotionless and absolutely implacable.

"What? What's going on?" The creature twisted violently against the sand which flowed up around it like a river of living mud. The _chakra_ of the One-Tail filled the air now, pulsing in exaltation and pleasure.

"What_ are _you?" the Other Mother shrieked.

The boy reached out with the great paw of sand, clenching her in a vise-like fist.

"I am Gaara of Sand."

The fist _squeezed._


	19. Chapter 19

The paw opened and a crushed lump of metal and bone fell away into the bright abyss. There was a moment of stillness, then Kankuro felt the _chakra_ fabric of the empty white world begin to disintegrate into pure nothingness. _We've got to get out of here!_ To his horror, the strand of web he was holding faded and he found himself plummeting into the emptiness.

Then something caught his leg and he felt the burning, sticky feel of the One Tail's _chakra_ as he was lifted up towards the tiny door. He scrambled inside, turning to see what had become of the others. A living river of sand was lifting Temari to the door; Kankuro caught her and hoisted her awkwardly over his shoulder. As he started down the tunnel, he heard the door close behind them.

Temari was a deadweight and it was all Kankuro could do in the tight space to crawl towards the narrow opening back into the real world and try not to think about the thinness of the tunnel around them. It felt as if the whole place had been somehow created by _chakra_ alone and now was rapidly becoming less and less real, like a dream fading as one realizes one is waking. _Got to get through the door before we disappear with it!_ Kankuro struggled desperately forward, pushing his way through moldy debris that looked as if it were as old as the house itself.

He reached the door and crawled through, letting Temari roll over on the dusty boards as he turned to look back for Gaara. The younger boy was there behind him, still surrounded by his cloud of sand although the shape had vanished.

"What the heck _was_ that?" Kankuro asked.

Gaara pulled the little door shut and turned the button-handled key without answering. The cold deadness was still in his eyes and Kankuro shivered.

"Temari's hurt," he said, "Watch her while I find the first aid stuff."

Gaara looked strangely alone as he sat down with his back against the door, pulling his knees up and hugging them without any expression. Kankuro ran into the kitchen and pulled out their box of supplies, digging hastily through school books and canned food to find the first aid box. _Got it!_ He didn't let himself think about what might happen if Temari died. Or even what would happen when they had to report this whole mess. And _especially_ not about the terrible shape in the sand during the last fight.

Between them, they got Temari onto the sofa and Kankuro divided his time between the first aid supplies and the section in Temari's copy of _Elementary Ninja Field Medicine_ that covered emergency treatment of abdominal wounds. He was aware that Gaara had left the room, but didn't bother looking for him. Gaara was a lot safer than he or Temari was.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Temari opened her eyes.

"Kankuro?"

"It's ok, we're all alive and that _thing_ is dead."

"Where's Gaara?"

"He's here somewhere."

"It was the One Tail," Temari said, wincing as she tried to move, "It was _there_, in his sand–I could feel its _chakra_!"

"Yeah." Kankuro scowled gloomily at the gas fire; they were going to get in _so much trouble_. "Hey, don't try to get up," he added as Temari tried to sit up, "The book says you need to stay flat and drink plenty of liquids and above all not exert yourself until the Medical Nin get here."

"But they don't know!"

"I'm going to run into town and call. But you've got to promise you won't try to get up."

"But if Gaara's out there somewhere–"

"Nothing is going to hurt Gaara," Kankuro growled. "You saw that thing! He's a heck of a lot safer than we are!"

Temari's face fell. "He's just a kid."

"And he just _killed_ that Other Mother thing! And I don't think it bothered him a bit!"

"What have we done to him?" Temari whispered, "We turned him into that–all of us. We left him alone because he was a _jinchuriki_ and now we may never be able to reach him."

Kankuro looked down.

"Yeah," he said after a minute, "But right now, we've got other problems. Like how the heck we're going to explain all this to father. And I've got to go call before it gets any later. So just stay put and I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Okay. Be careful."

From his seat on the porch roof, Gaara watched his brother sprint off towards town. It was already getting dark, but he didn't feel cold. He didn't really feel anything. Just the Presence of his sand, swirling around him.

In the evening shadows, darkness caressed the young ninja.


	20. Chapter 20

Gaara went up to his chilly, dark room and crawled into bed, tucking the three Ghost Eyes under his pillow. He shut his eyes and tried to focus on the faint chakra he could still feel from them. For a while nothing happened, except he could feel himself drifting off to sleep. Maybe it was all a dream; maybe nothing was real any more. Maybe it didn't matter.

In the darkness of the room, sand began to cluster around the bed.

Gaara looked up as he heard voices. The three Ghost Children were standing above him, glowing faintly in the bright cloudiness around them. They looked golden now, with little glowing rings above their heads. And they had real eyes now–bright, happy eyes.

"It's a fine, fine thing you did for us, boy," said the older girl.

She smiled held something out–it was his teddy bear. Gaara took it and hugged it tightly.

"It's over," he said in a muffled voice.

The Ghost Children looked at each other with strange, worried expressions.

"It_ is_ over and done with, for _us_," the younger girl said hesitantly.

Gaara looked up.

"You're in terrible danger, boy!" the older girl said.

"Why?"

The Ghost Children exchanged glances again.

"It's the creature inside you," the younger girl said after a moment, "It's awoken now, and it yearns to destroy."

"Only when I call it out," Gaara said.

"No, it's learned the way out," the Ghost Boy warned.

"It can escape when you're not awake and keeping it inside," said the younger girl.

"Hurry, boy," the older girl said anxiously, "You have to wake before it destroys all it can find!"

"Can thou not hear thy sister?" the boy asked.

Gaara listened, and in the distance he heard what sounded like Temari's voice. He concentrated, trying to make out the words...

"Gaara!" Temari screamed as the One-Tail tore through the wall with one swipe, "Gaara, wake up!"

"Free at last!" the One-Tail crowed.

_There's no way I can stop it!_ Temari braced herself on the back of the sofa, trying to stand firmly; she could barely move, let alone fight. Gaara was perched on the creature, as though he were standing half-submerged in the One-Tail's head, but his eyes were shut and he seemed fast asleep.

"Wake up!"

"You keep quiet!"

She couldn't dodge. The One-Tail grabbed her in one massive paw and held her up. Temari could feel the terrible, inhuman force of the sand prison tightening around her. When it squeezed, there would be nothing left but blood and jelly and fragments of bone.

"_Gaara!"_

And then her little brother's eyes came open.

For a long moment, he felt only the shock of seeing the creature and the feeling of the power flooding them both like some marvelous, heady wine. Power such as he'd never dreamed of, and even his father couldn't suspect a tenth of. Power to crush any enemy, destroy any foe. Then Gaara looked down the length of the One-Tail's arm to where Temari was imprisoned in its paw, her face white in the moonlight, and felt the feeling waver. He could feel the creature's mind and will now, struggling to exert itself.

"Why are you stopping me? She's nothing to you."

"Gaara," Temari whispered, fighting for breath, "Help me!"

"We can be gods," the One-Tail said, "Nothing and no one can stand before us!"

_No._ Gaara felt the One-Tail's control slip as he brought his own will to bear. It was hard, like fighting his way forward against the blast of a furious sandstorm. He could feel the creature's emotions boiling over him, hot and red and dripping. Kill, destroy, crush. Smash everything, leave no one alive. He concentrated harder, focusing on the paw holding Temari. _Let go._

The One-Tail shrieked in fury as Gaara forced the paw open, dropping Temari to the floor. _Go back,_ Gaara ordered, _until I call for you._

The One-Tail screamed again and Temari looked up to see the monstrous form sinking into a shapeless mound of sand, leaving Gaara standing on top. He looked at her expressionlessly for a second, then turned and walked away into the darkness.

"Gaara..."

Under the lacy black branches of the bare orchard Gaara walked slowly, hugging his teddy tightly.

_I will never sleep again. _He could never be off his guard now, not with anyone–even himself.

_I will never trust again. _He held out one hand, sand lifting the cover off the old well. He looked down into the depths, to where a faint glimmer indicated the water far below.

_I will never love again._ He held out the teddy and let it fall. There was a faint splash, then empty stillness in the orchard and inside him. He let the cover fall back into place like the lid of a tomb.

_I am Gaara of Sand._ He stood for a minute in the all-surrounding emptiness, then lifted his head and walked back down the hill into the darkness of the future.

The End


End file.
